About the Author

Ann Beattie has been included in five O. Henry Award Collections, in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Short Stories of the Century. She is the recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for achievement in the short story. In 2005, she received the Rea Award for the Short Story. The former Edgar Allan Poe Professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Virginia, she is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She and her husband, Lincoln Perry, live in Maine, Virginia, and Florida.

Reviews

"Beattie is a shrewd observer of human nature and one of the best short story writers alive." -- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

"Ann Beattie is one of our era's most vital masters of the short form." -- The Washington Post Book World

"Beattie has a keen eye for love's fault lines, for our missed signals and hidden motives." -- More

"Beattie's style works brilliantly -- as, seeming only to report the events of an evening, she reveals the essence of her tale." -- The Atlantic Monthly

"The stories of Follies shine with the insights of time." -- Los Angeles Times

"Beattie is a shrewd observer of human nature and one of the best short story writers alive." -- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Ann Beattie is one of our era's most vital masters of the short form." -- The Washington Post Book World
"Beattie has a keen eye for love's fault lines, for our missed signals and hidden motives." -- More
"Beattie's style works brilliantly -- as, seeming only to report the events of an evening, she reveals the essence of her tale." -- The Atlantic Monthly
"The stories of Follies shine with the insights of time." -- Los Angeles Times

Odd but subtle coincidences, missed connections, strained family relations these are the major dynamics in Beattie's latest collection of nine stories and a novella. In the latter, Flechette Follies, a random accident George Wissone rear-ends Nancy Gregerson at a stoplight in Charlottesville, Va., sparks a connection that affects far-flung people. Nancy's troubled son is MIA in London, and she hires George (whom she correctly guesses to be in the CIA) to track him down. When George himself disappears, it affects not only Nancy but also George's on-again, off-again girlfriend and others who join forces to learn his fate. Beattie's stories of adult children attempting to make sense of their aging parents and their own relationships are also compelling. In Find and Replace, a woman tries to comprehend her mother's decision to suddenly move in with another man following the death of her husband; The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation spools out the strained relations between two siblings after their mother has a stroke. While a few stories read more like extended vignettes, Beattie's trademarks are here: the careful language, the deft humor and the sad, slow sweetness of life winding its way on. Fans should be happy to find that after all these years, this esteemed writer's characters can still be expected to muse over life's ironies and find no easy conclusions. Agent, Lynn Nesbit. (May) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.